MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Aug 20;835:155521. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155521. Epub 2022 Apr 27.
Carbon black (CB) and silica (Sil) as rubber reinforcement have raised environmental concerns for being high resources consumptive and less susceptible towards biodegradability. Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) has demonstrated great potentials for use as biodegradable nanofillers in rubber nanocomposites while evaluation of its environmental impacts with optimal end-of-life (EOL) choices is not carried out. To simulate realistic EOL, thermo-oxidative aging and soil burial aging behaviors of rubber nanocomposites with 33.3% filler were performed. The environmental weathering performance modeled with the help of life cycle assessment (LCA) illustrates increased biodegradation susceptibility with partial replacement of CB or Sil with CNC in the nanocomposites, hence promoting the environmental solutions for waste minimalization by enhancing the biodegradability potentials. In terms of LCA, the CNC incorporation contributes more to the environmental impacts in manufacturing but greatly lowers the EOL choices, by reducing the global warming potential values.
炭黑 (CB) 和二氧化硅 (Sil) 作为橡胶增强剂，由于资源消耗高且生物降解性较差，引起了人们对环境的关注。纤维素纳米晶体 (CNC) 已被证明具有在橡胶纳米复合材料中用作可生物降解纳米填料的巨大潜力，而对其环境影响进行评估并选择最佳的报废处理方式尚未进行。为了模拟实际的报废处理，对填充量为 33.3%的橡胶纳米复合材料进行了热氧化老化和土壤掩埋老化行为的实验。借助生命周期评估 (LCA) 对环境风化性能进行建模，结果表明，在纳米复合材料中用 CNC 部分替代 CB 或 Sil，可提高生物降解的敏感性，从而通过增强生物降解潜力来促进废物最小化的环境解决方案。从 LCA 的角度来看，CNC 的加入虽然会对制造过程中的环境影响产生更大的贡献，但通过降低全球变暖潜值，大大降低了报废处理方式的选择。
